Automatic device for supervising the regular transportation of cards in a card-controlled business machine



April 13, 1954 G J. KEULEN ET AL 2,675,233

AUTOMATIC DEVICE FOR SUPERVISING THE REGULAR TRANSPORTATION OF CARDS IN A CARD-CONTROLLED BUSINESS MACHINE Filed Aug. 5, 1950 l C [Oi C lOd I78 2| Patented Apr. 13, 1954 AUTOMATIC DEVICE FOR SUPERVISING THE REGULAR TRANSPORTATION OF CARDS IN A CARD-CONTROLLED BUSI- NESS MACHINE Gerben J. Kculen, Adrianus K001, and Hendrik A. Cival, Amsterdam, Netherlands, assignors to Nederlandse Boekhouden Statistiekmachine- Maatschappij Bullatec N. V., Netherlands, a corporation Amsterdam,

Application August 5, 1950, Serial No. 177,824

Claims priority, application Neth erlands January 19, 1950 Claims. (Cl. 2'Z157) The invention relates to a device for supervising the regular transportation of the cards in a card controlled business machine. In such machines in which a large number of cards are to be guided one after another along a transport track, it is very important that any irregular transportation is immediately detected and that a safety device is actuated by which e. g. the machine is stopped.

The irregularities in the transportation of the cards can be caused by a lateral displacement of the cards from the guide-track owing to irregular working of the transporting rollers for the cards, said lateral displacement causing wrong position ing of the cards arriving at the following parts of the machine.

Another irregularity arises when the cards are pushed one over the other in the guide-track owing to undesired braking of one or more cards the row.

Such irregularities are especially objectionable in business-machines working with indication carriers, e. g. punched cards. In these machines the punched cards must be sorted according to certain combinations of the punched holes. The sorting capacity of such machines is very large,

32308-40300 cards per hour.

It will be obvious, that with this speed any irregularity in the transportation of the cards will cause a large number of the cards to collide with each other before the machine is stopped by hand. As a result of such a failure the cards can be damaged and in each case much time is lost, as the cards which are sorted into wrong receptacles need to be sorted again.

Therefore an automatic device for supervising such machines must operate very reliably and also immediately at the start of a failure.

The main object of the invention is to provide a solution for this problem by placing a plurality of supervising devices near the track of the moving cards, which devices are moved in the direcden of transportation, when one or more cards are displaced out of their normal track and by this movement actuate a safety device, e. g. a stopping device for the machine. By placing the supervising device in such a manner that it can be moved in the direction of transportation, a large displacement of this device can be obtained, which is suflicient for actuating the safety device. On the other hand when devices are used which would be laterally displaced in relation to the direction of transportation by a lateral irregularity of a moving card, or which would be displaced in a vertical direction by an accumulation of cards one over the other, the extentof displacement of the supervising device would be determined by the extent of the irregularity. For instance if an electrical contact had to be actuated by an accumulation of cards one above the other, a certain number of cards would be pushed one over the other before the contact would be closed. In practice it has been shown, that with a laterally moving supervising device such a device must be displaced about 1 millimetre (in relation to th required distance between the electrical contacts and the inevitable play of the moving parts) which distance corresponds with the thickness of six cards of the usual material. However When a supervising device only acts when six cards are pushed one over the other, such a device is much too slow.

In contradistinction herewith the supervising device according to the invention is already moved into the direction of transportation, when only one card is pushed over a following card, causing a deviation of a fraction of a millimetre.

In the machine according to the invention herein particularly illustrated and described, the cards are normally transported along the guide path one after another in a non-overlapping condition. Consequently the normal path of these cards is determined by the width and the thickness of the cards.

It is a principal object of the invention to detect irregularities in the vertical direction e. g. any superposition or overlapping of the cards. However, it will be obvious that by placing detector tubes at both sides of the guide path as illustrated in one of the embodiments of the invention, a deviation sideways or horizontally with respect to the direction of feed can also be detected.

The invention is hereafter described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which two embodiments of a device according to the invention ar shown.

Figure 1 schematically shows a side view of the transporting device of a sorting machine for punched cards, all parts not necessary for understanding of the invention being omitted.

Figure 2 shows asimilar side view of a second embodiment of the invention.

Figure 3 is a cross-section along the line IIIIII in Figure 2.

Figure 4 is a cross section of a detail on an enlarged scale.

In the Figures 1 and 2, a plurality of pairs of transporting rolls are shown, the first pair of rolls being indicated by I (la and Iflb. The direction of transport is indicated by the arrow A.

Both embodiments respectively relate to the transporting section of a sorting machine for punched cards, the cards moving one following the other in the guide path indicated by the dash lines in Fig. 1.

According to the embodiment of Figure 1, a supervising device is placed over theguide path and before the rolls Illa, 111b, said device being provided with an arm rotatable about a spindle 26. The free end of the arm 25 is pivotally connected at 28 with an arm 21 forming the supervising device proper. The free end of the arm 21 rests on a pin 29 fixed to the frame of the machine, said pin being adjusted in such a man ner, that the lower surface of the arm 21 is just free from the top side of the card it.

If now the regular flow of the cards is disturbed, a part of a flat card will move out of its normal path, as the card is deformed somewhat when stopped or as a card is pushed over the preceding card. Now the lower surface 39 of the arm 21 is touched and the arm is moved along in the direction of transportation by friction against the action of a weak tension spring 3!. By means of the arm a contact spring of an electrical contact 32 is moved andthe contact is closed, whereby the machine is stopped. V

7 As the arm 21 is moved in the direction of transportation of the cards a deviation from the normal path of the cards having a thickness of one card is already sufficient for obtaining so large a displacement of the supervising device 21 that the closing of the contact 32 is assured.

It will be obvious, that a disturbance may occur at different spots along the guide path, so along thispath a plurality of the supervising devices described must be placed. Two of these devices are shownin Figure 1, all devices operating in the same manner. Nevertheless in this construction certain parts of the transport path or track will not be su'pervised and the whole arrangement will be rather expensive in view of the large number of supervising devices needed, whilst with the number of devices applied the chance of faults in the operation will increase.

These disadvantages areremoved by the second embodiment according to the Figures 2-4.

At one end of the frame of the transport track a resilient metal arm [2 is provided, which arm is shown on an enlarged scale in Figure 4. By means of a pin 13 a steel wire I8 is connected to this arm, the other end of said wire lbeing con nected to a screw pin M in a bow l5 fixed to the frame of the machine. The pin 14 is adjusted by means of a nut 16 in such a manner, that the wire 18 is tensioned by the resilient arm !2, maintaining a constant tension in the wire.

Around the wire a supervising device i1 is placed extending along the whole length of the transport track, said device for instance being formed as a tube made of a spiralized metal wire.

This tube 11 can be easily moved along the smooth wire. The right end of the tube abuts against an insulating bushing it placed in an opening of the frame, said bushing being pressed against the tube by means of a spring 29 of a pair of contact springs 20,2061. In this manner the supervising device 11 is always pressed back 4 are placed directly over the transport track. Moreover at both sides of this track similar supervising devices 110 and [1d are placed.

By these very simple means a supervising along the whole length of the track is obtained. The tube is moved by the cards at each spot where a deviation in the normal path of the cards will occur. The rough surface of the tube 11 has a sufficient friction with the surface of the deviated card, so that the small friction of the tube on the smooth wire 18 is overcome and the spring 26 is moved for closing the electrical contact stopping the machine. The machines described hereinbefore are of the type in which the cards do not slide on a table, but are freely transported from one pair of rolls to the following pair of rolls. As shown in Figure 2 the axes of these rolls Mia and lilb are shifted in the direction of transportation with the result that the cards H :will be disposed to move in a somewhat upward direction, so that they are pressed against and will slide along an upper guide 2!, schematically shown in Figure 3, which guide extends along the total length of the track.

The sorting is achieved by moving the flaps 22 (Figure 2) placed over the track between adjainto its initial position against the end of the arm 12. V

Figure 3 shows that each set of transporting rolls for the cards I l comprises two pairs of rolls placed at the left and at the right, said pairs being indicated at 10a, 10b, and 100, Hid respectively. Further, two of the supervising devices already described are indicated by 11a and [1b,which cent pairs of rolls. When such a flap is turned down by electrical means, a card is pressed downwards out of the track and slides along guides (not shown) into a sorting receptacle. As such arrangements are known per se a further description seems to be superfluous. The tube 11 can also be made of a material with a rough outer surface or can be provided with a coating with a large coefficient of friction.

I claim:

1. A device for detecting the superposition or overlapping of one card over the other in a cardcontrolled machine, comprising a guide path, means for feeding the cards one after another in a non-overlapping condition along said guide path, at least one tensioned wire disposed above and vertically spaced from said guide path and extending longitudinally in the direction of feeding of the cards, a detector tube slidably mounted on said tensioned wire and having a lower surface vertically spaced from said guide path a distance sufficient to permit free passage of the cards in co-planar, non-overlapping relationship but to be engaged by the uppermost of two cards when said cards are in overlapping relationship, whereby frictional engagement between said detector tube and said uppermost card causes said tube to be slidably moved on said wire in the direction of feed, and a safety device actuated upon movement of said tube in the direction of feed of the said cards, said safety device being connected to stop the feeding of the cards by said feeding means upon such movement of the tube.

2. A device for detecting the superposition or overlapping of one card over the other for detecting lateral deviations of the cards from the path of travel in a card-controlled machine, com prising a guide path, means for feeding the cards one after another in a non-overlapping condition along said guide path, a plurality of tensioned wires disposed above and vertically spaced from said guide path and extending longitudinally in the direction of feeding of the cards, a tensioned wire placed at each side of said guide path, a detector tube slidably mounted on each of said tensioned wires above said guide path, the detector tube on each of said plurality of tensioned wires having a lower surface vertically spaced from said guide path a distance sufi'icient to permit free passage of the cards in co-planar, non-overlapping relationship but to be engaged by the uppermost of two cards when said cards are in overlapping relationship, the detector tube on said wires at each side of said guide path having a surface laterally spaced from the guide path for engagement by the cards upon lateral deviation from the guide path, whereby frictional engagement between any of said detector tubes and said uppermost card or said laterally deviated card causes the engaged tube to he slidably moved on its mounting wire in the direction of feed, and a safety device actuated upon movement of said engaged tube in the direction of feed of the said cards, said safety device being connected to stop the feeding of the cards by said feeding means upon such movement of the tube.

3. A device for detecting the superposition or overlapping of one card over the other in a cardcontrolled machine, comprising a guide path, means for feeding the cards one after another in a non-overlapping condition along said guide path, a plurality of tensioned wires disposed above and vertically spaced from said guide path and extending longitudinally in the direction of feeding of the cards, a detector tube slidably mounted on each of said tensioned wires, said detector tube being formed by spirally-wound wire and having a lower surface vertically spaced from said guide path a distance sufficient to permit free passage of the cards in co-planar, nonoverlapping relationship but to be engaged by the uppermost of two cards when said cards are in overlapping relationship, whereby frictional engagement between said detector tube and said uppermost card causes said tube to be slidably moved on said wire in the direction of feed, and a safety device actuated upon movement of said tube in the direction of feed of the said cards,

said safety device being connected to stop the feeding of the cards by said feeding means upon said movement of the tube.

4. A device for detecting the superposition or overlapping of one card over the other in a cardcontrolled machine, comprising a guide path, means for feeding the cards one after another in a non-overlapping condition along said guide path, at least one wire disposed above and vertically spaced from said guide path and extending longitudinally in the direction of feeding of the cards, one end of said wire being connected to the frame of the machine, the other end of said wire being connected to a resilient arm fixed to the frame of the machine for tensioning said wire, a detector tube slidably mounted on said tensioned wire and having a lower surface vertically spaced from said guide path a distance suflicient to permit free passage of the cards in co-planar, nonoverlapping relationship but to be engaged by the uppermost of two cards when said cards are in overlapping relationship, whereby frictional engagement between said detector tube and said uppermost card causes said tube to be slidably moved on said wire in the direction of feed, and a safety device actuated upon movement of said tube in the direction of feed of the said cards, said safety device being connected to stop the feeding of the cards by said feeding means upon such movement of the tube.

5. A device as defined in claim 4, further comprising a spring acting on said detector tube in a direction opposite to said direction of feed to return said tube to its initial normal position after movement of said tube by said uppermost card.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,917,359 Cameron July 11, 1933 2,129,230 ONeil Sept, 6, 1938 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 257,831 Great Britain Sept. 9, 1926 

